WASHINGTON — Everytown for Gun Safety and its grassroots networks, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, released the following statements applauding the introduction of bipartisan legislation in the House of Representatives to require background checks on all gun sales. The House bill is being introduced by Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Mike Thompson (D-CA).
“Background checks are the foundation of any common-sense approach to preventing gun violence, which is why more than 90 percent of Americans support them,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “Everytown applauds this bipartisan group of lawmakers for championing a crucial and common-sense step to keep guns out of dangerous hands.”
“The daily toll of our nation’s gun violence epidemic serves as a deadly reminder that further action is needed to save lives — and that starts with passing bipartisan, common-sense legislation that requires background checks on all gun sales,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “Background checks keep guns out of the hands of hundreds of thousands people each year who shouldn’t have them — and our elected officials should be racing to close loopholes that currently allow anyone to go and buy a gun from an unlicensed seller.”
Ninety three percent of voters, 89% of Republicans, and 89% of gun owners support requiring background checks on all gun sales, and there’s a good reason why: background checks save lives. Each year on just one website, 1.2 million online ads offering firearms for sale are listed that would not legally require a background check to be completed. And nearly 1 in 9 prospective buyers who respond to these ads would not pass a background check.
Last year, Congress passed the historic Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major federal gun safety law in nearly 26 years, which establishes an enhanced background check process for gun buyers under age 21, provides federal funding to implement state extreme risk protection laws, clarifies existing law on what it means to be “engaged in the business” of selling firearms, disarms domestic abusers by addressing the dating partner loophole, and funds community violence intervention programs, among other items. Additionally, the Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized last year, which included a critical gun safety provision, and Congress not only confirmed Steve Dettelbach as the first Senate-confirmed ATF Director in nearly a decade but also gave the ATF a significant budget increase in the Fiscal Year 2023 omnibus appropriations package — increasing resources the agency has to go after gun crime.
